Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

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Bio filter: 18 gallon Rubbermaid tote with bio media.

I made 20+ bio balls out of bird netting that I scrunched up into a bath scrubby like ball. I also zip tied all the drilled out pvc disks to give more surface area for the beneficial bacteria to colonize. I also took eight Gatorade bottles filled with hydroton with holes drilled in one bottle. I then placed a mini air stone in the other bottles cap and smushed it inside the other. This gave a pocket of water for the air stone to do its thing and go up into the hydron bottle via more drilled holes. I then placed two more air disks and a 100 watt water heater at the bottom of the 18 gallon tote. I then mounted each bio bottle to a upside flower trey that has two regular water bottles filled with stones to anchor this contraption down. I Hope this works, will add ammonia and see how it goes.

See below for final result.

I like the design, very unconventional. Looking forward to seeing the system in action. =)

Wouldn't it be better just to take apart the system, the parts that can be removed, and give it a good scrub rather then running a diluted chlorine solution through it?

Yeah, good point. I just hate draining the water out of the system since I'll have to siphon it out and the floor drain floods when there is too much water being dumped in it. Maybe skip the cleaning and just brush out the tubes.

If you ever do get to the point where you're cleaning out the water into a flood drain, it would probably be good to have a solids trap before the drain as you're dumping.

The house is really old so the "drain" in the basement is basically a hole that was chiseled out by the previous owner that opens up to dirt underneath the house. Since I'm renting and only plan to have these systems run for a year or two, I'm not to concerned about any solids build up. Plus when I clean the tanks I siphon into another bucket and dump that stuff outside.

I am thinking of adding a back up solids trap inside the bio filter just in case the RFF doesn't work out. I think I might have to make the cylinder inside the RFF sit lower in the water jug or get a longer pipe. No way of knowing if the solids will settle to the bottom until I have some solids in there to test out. Which I hope get pumped from the FT to the RFF instead of being chopped up and remain in the tank.

Update:

I completed plumbing all the parts together this weekend. I didn't use any glue so there were a bunch of leaks. After sealing them up with a ton of silicon, all the leaks have been fixed. I wanted to avoid using PVC glue as this system will need to be torn apart in the future.

As of yesterday (9/16), the system is online and I began the cycling process. I have a bio filter in my other system and will take some bio media from it and place in the new system's bio filter to help jump start the bio cycle.

Hope to have the fish and plants in shortly. Thinking about strawberry and lettuce plants.

Wow, been a while since my last update so here it goes.

I added some parsley, swiss chard, strawberries and spinach seeds a few weeks ago. I'd say about half took off and about a third are showing some positive growth since then. I was using some maxi crop while I was cycling. I'll upload some pictures later once I get home. I knew the system had cycled weeks ago but the PH was really high and I didn't want to risk any casualties with the fish. I couldn't tell what the PH was on my test but it has since dropped into a color region I can recognize.

As of 11/13, I moved 3 of the smallest tilapia from my first system into this system. It's been over a week and they are doing alright. They didn't eat right away like they used to but are finally getting back into the swing of things. After a week, no casualties.

I made a few adjustments with the system after noticing some issues. First there was an accumulation of solids in the tank. I bought some wave makers to keep the solids moving throughout the tank. However the wave maker was too powerful and was stressing out the fish. I bought a smaller one and put the bigger one in the bio filter. The wave makers help with a few things. It eliminates any dead zones and I've seen an improvement with my water temperatures.

I insulated the fish tank with some foam board I have lying around. The room temperature has now dropped to 58 degrees and I keep the tanks consistently at 68. My plan is to get some more foam board to encapsulate the entire tank and then find some cheap blankets at the thrift store to also help for those cold days in January.

The final improvement which I'm most proud of is I suspended my pvc tubes I use as caves that the fish really like to go into. When I had the pvc laying on the bottom of the tank, solids would start to build up all around them. So I zipped tied a 3/4 pvc tube the length of the tank under the hood and then used fishing line to hang the "caves/pvc" so they wouldn't be touching the bottom. This has kept the tank nice and neat. The other thing I had to do was remove the covering on my pump. It was screening out the solids.

The solids separator I built is doing way better than I expected. It's an inverted water cooler that I used to build a RFF filter. The only issue is the solids accumulate right before the neck of the bottle instead of falling down into the drain ball valve outlet.

I hope to move one more of the smallest tilapia left in the first tank. I want to try and fatten them up. In the original tank the bigger ones would eat everything and they would be stuck with whatever was left.

Update:

Lost power, see System 1 thread for more info.

I re-adjusted the pvc tube caves in the tank as they were on the same side of the tank as the heaters. I moved the wave maker to blow across the heaters to circulate the water better.



I then re-built the insulation around the tank. I bought some professional insulation sheets that will replace the packing/cardboard sheets I was using.



I also ordered some mylar reflective sheeting. I placed a small strip of it on top of the T5 light to act as a DIY reflector.

Cleaned out the RFF filter for the first time since adding fish. Man that thing does a great job of separating solids. I'm going to keep an eye out for more water cooler bottles as those things are magic.

Update: Well this system didn't really turn out the way I had hoped. I blame the basement temperature in the middle of winter in central pa. Last week the temps were in the low-mid 30's. So today I decided to deactivate the system to try and save some money with the lighting and heating systems. The tilapia definitely had their growth stunted. The tiny ones haven't gotten much bigger and I've had them since July (5 months). I took them upstairs into my other aquarium in the office with a water temperature of 70 degrees. I hope I can fatten them up. Anyway, the RFF filter and the bio filter I made definitely were a success so I would try this system again in better conditions. I will be moving to a new home in the next few months hopefully so I can give this another try.